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Tag Archives: Adaptive Ability

Technology Encourages Advanced Intellect

Knowledge presented by the scientific method shattered scholastic consideration for real-time events. Society began to question instead of take for granted the origins and purpose of life. {Peer} wrote: “The changes that are sometimes so hard for the scientific community to make in the society at large can be even harder to make within the scientific community.”

Yes, changes that greatly impact human existence are difficult to accept or reject, depending on one’s stance. Science not only discovers empirical fact, but they then have to figure out how to introduce new truth to society after they battle it out with their peers.

I like to do comparisons to see if we can predict any future historical happenings via deduction. Evolution and the printing press, if we allow these to be classified as encouraging progress, prepared humans for modernism. Once modern, humanity took a step back and developed post-modernism to correct the errors created by aggressive reason (rising ethics and repulsion to barbarism). Around this time, society received new input from offices of authority – the Internet piggy-backed off the printing press and Quantum Theory came roaring in to make evolution look like Link-in-Logs. One of the most cliché sayings, “History repeats itself,” is lingering…. If the printing press (15th c) presented the ability to issue in the scientific revolution (17th, 18th, 19th c) then we may deduce that approximately 200 years after the Internet (20th c) – maybe less if we account for the advancement of the human brain as means to reduce the rate of improvement – so…let us allot for exponential growth, say 115 years… with this rough estimation, science (though it might be called something different by then, think “natural philosophers” becoming specialist scientists) may expect another revolution around 2131 c.e.

This, of course, is under the assumption that Isis does not behead or blow up humanity, and that overpopulation has not encouraged the other organic systems to eradicate the human species as means of defense. The good news is that the advancement of species displays the immense possibilities for the future, but the bad news is that our intelligence may lead to unimaginable morphisms, which current consciousness fears the loss of human nature. I do not think the latter will happen. Human nature is adaptive, it will undoubtedly change but it will not disappear. Religion will also change, adapting to the demands of society – it has to because it is a human expression and a collective effort that creates society.

In one realm of existence, religion may stay the same until the people who believe its mantras no longer exist, but quantum theory tells us that there is a realm where religion merges with science, a realm where religion dies as well as one where science ends, and realms where chaos or harmony may be the result. In 115 years, human intelligence may balk or embrace multiple dimensional realms – we, unfortunately, are not yet evolved enough to accept the truth of the future.

Nietzsche’s concept of morality was described as a natural human factor based on the societal urges of the individual – something he refers to as herd instinct. Social media displays a plethora of references to the masses of modern society as sheep – and the participants could easily have gotten this notion from Nietzsche; he said, “With morality the individual is instructed to be a function of the herd and to ascribe value to himself only as a function” (116). Humans require motivation to perform actions, but Nietzsche saw this as a biological expression not afforded nature, in other words – nature would not be defined by man’s laws.

He viewed the universe as accidental chaos, or a lack of order and said, “… in no way does [nature] strive to imitate man! In no way do our aesthetic and moral judgements apply to it! It also has no drive to self-preservation or any other drives; nor does it observe any laws” (Nietzsche 111). He viewed matter as an error and therefore an exception to what should be natural law. Nietzsche called for a re-evaluation of a de-deified nature – allowing room for nature and species to continue to change along it’s exceptional chaotic path. I see it as workings of evolution. Morals belonged to the herd instinct and were not dependent on religious factors, or God. Humanity itself, with the natural adaptive qualities of an organism, adapted to become godlike, erasing the need for God – Nietzsche felt the concept of deity would become a thing of the past, but he noted that the time he spoke was too soon; he told a parable of the madman: “This tremendous event is still on its way, wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. … This deed is still more remote to them than the remotest stars – and yet they have done it themselves!” (125).

Nietzsche saw culture as a product of social experience, but morality as an active motivator for the human species – accredited to the overriding demands of the community. Nietzsche held “…where need and distress have for a long time forced people to communicate, to understand each other swiftly and subtly, there finally exists a surplus of this power and art of expression, a faculty, so to speak, which has slowly accumulated and now waits for an heir to spend it lavishly” (354). Culture was what expression caught from experience, and though he felt artists lacking, it was their responsibility to form culture for society.

People are often upset when reading Nietzsche. Is this because we are still, even in the modern sense, not ready to accept natural lessons?

Who Are You?

I am currently attaining my Master of Arts in Humanities at American Public University Systems. I expect to complete this degree by August of 2016. I am a member of the American Humanist Association, the American Philosophical Association, PEN@America, the History of Science Society, and the Socratic Philosophical Honor Society. I would love to find an internship because I want to put my brain to good use. Philosophy has a mind to be "out there" gleaning experience. Human nature is twisting and growing - and the abilities we know are able to learn more. I am excited to be a philosopher, historian, writer, and occasional poetess.